498 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION P. 



of the work. The railroads are considered as representing 

 the average or general earnings of employes more than any 

 other returns of the Census, — the employes including the 

 highest paid officials and the lowest paid labourers. This 

 estimate is one taken by Mr. Edward Atkinson in his 

 computations, and I adopt it. Then I take the capital 

 invested in railways, telegraphs, canals, shipping, residences, 

 and business real estate, and estimate an average return on 

 such invested capital at 5 per cent. ; but not including the 

 farms, of which all but a fractional portion are owned by 

 the agriculturalists. I take the profits of manufacturers and 

 traders on the amount of production at the same rate as in 

 Australia, being given to understand that the rate of interest 

 which prevails in the United States is about the same. And 

 when I add up the figures given by such calculations on the 

 data furnished by the records, I find that they give a total 

 for all incomes double that of the production, to the extent 

 of from one to one and a-half per cent, on the amount of the 

 incomes— £2041 millions. 



I have been able to verify my calculations for the Colony 

 of New South Wales by another and an entirely different 

 calculation, which gives precisely the same result. On 

 page 334 of Mr. Coghlan's work " Wealth and Progress," 

 for 1888-1889, in the chapter headed "Cost of Living," 

 there is a table showing the expenditure of the population 

 of New South Wales. I find upon enquiry that it was 

 prepared for the year 1887, at a different time from that 

 of the table of incomes, and from entirely different material. 

 Necessarily so; because, whilst the production included in 

 the other table as income consists in the greatest part of raw 

 material at the point of production, the commodities upon 

 which expenditure has taken place has been in imported 

 goods of wholly different values at the point of consumption. 

 Whilst the first table contains incomes received from wages 

 employment, services, and Government expenditure, the 

 second represents in great part the sale of products and 

 payments, amongst other things for fuel and light, art and 

 amusement, books and newspapers, household expenses. &c. 

 I find, upon enquiry, that this table was also compiled from 

 a vast amount of information outside the Statistician's office, 

 as to cost of the different classes of the imported goods, 

 selling prices, average profits, &c. The amount of this table 

 is £48,700,000. When I add the portion of the absentee 



